Arnold Schönberg - Pelléas and Mélisande | Jukka-Pekka Saraste | WDR Symphony Orchestra Germany

Arnold Schoenberg's symphonic poem "Pelléas and Mélisande op. 5" based on the drama by Maurice Maeterlinck. Performed by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Recorded live at the Kölner Philharmonie on September 7, 2018.
Arnold Schoenberg - Pelléas and Mélisande op. 5, symphonic poem for orchestra.
I.
00:00:00 Die Achtel ein wenig bewegt
00:03:41 Heftig
00:06:49 Lebhaft
II.
00:10:21 Sehr rasch
00:16:32 Ein wenig bewegt
III.
00:17:55 Langsam
00:21:06 Ein wenig bewegter
IV.
00:24:58 Sehr langsam
00:28:50 Etwas bewegt
00:31:03 In gehender Bewegung
00:32:51 Breit
WDR Symphony Orchestra
Jukka-Pekka Saraste, conductor
► For more on the symphony orchestra, concerts and current livestreams, visit www.wdr-sinfonieorchester.de
► The WDR Symphony Orchestra on Facebook / wdrsinfonieorchester
Work introduction
Maurice Maeterlinck's drama "Pelléas et Mélisande," first performed in Paris in 1893, struck a chord with the times: almost somnambulistically, the fairy-tale-like narrative develops along somber imagery, the tale of tangled antecedents and the fateful entanglement of two unhappy lovers who cannot come together. The poet was asked several times for the rights to set it to music, only reluctantly granting them, among them to Gabriel Fauré and Jean Sibelius, who respectively wrote incidental music for "Pelléas et Mélisande" (1898 and 1905), and also to Claude Debussy, who composed his only completed opera based on Maeterlinck's drama (first performed in 1902).
At the same time, Richard Strauss suggested to his young colleague Arnold Schoenberg that he also make Maeterlinck's drama the basis of an opera. Schoenberg later recalled, "I had originally thought of setting 'Pelleas and Melisande' as an opera, but later abandoned that plan - although I didn't know that Debussy was working on his opera at the same time." Instead, Schoenberg composed a symphonic poem: he began work in the spring of 1902, and the premiere took place on January 25, 1905, at the Großer Musikvereinssaal in Vienna, with the composer conducting. The work was not a success; the score seemed too complex to the public, and the poetry composed into it too elusive. Yet shortly after the turn of the century, Viennese audiences were quite familiar with developments in symphonic music, especially the encounter of poetry and music in the genre of symphonic poetry. In particular, the works of Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss met with great acclaim. However, the majority of the public was skeptical of modernist influences, such as those represented by Gustav Mahler. Thus the reaction to Schönberg's Pelleas composition was also negative: "One of the critics," Schönberg recalled in 1949, "suggested that I be put in an insane asylum and that music paper be kept out of my reach."
In fact, the composition is not a mere retelling of Maeterlinck's drama in tones, but rather attempts to virtually square the circle: musically, the fairy tale is to be retold, but at the same time the music is to follow purely musical principles of form. Schönberg succeeds in this by giving the most important characters and key moments of the drama musical motifs that keep the narrative going. For example, the quietly descending oboe motif that appears at the beginning belongs to Melisande, while Golo, the hunter, is given a short horn motif. These "leitmotifs" form the musical fabric, which in addition, however, is fitted into a purely symphonic form. Although the symphonic poem is in one movement (in keeping with the genre), there are four distinct parts that could also make four movements of a symphony: a sonata-like section [I.], a scherzo-like section [II.], a lyrical adagio [III.], and a final section designed as a grand recapitulation [IV.].
Schoenberg could hardly expect the concert audience to immediately recognize such a complex structure by hearing it. And so he commissioned his student Alban Berg to prepare a "short thematic analysis" of the work. The Vienna Universal Edition printed this listening guide in 1920, 15 years after the premiere. By this time, of course, the stirrings of musical modernism were already more advanced, and Schoenberg's phase of composing "with twelve notes related only to one another" was imminent.
Text: Melanie Unseld

[@lolamarchenko1666]

Pure beauty. Thank you for sharing this recording ❤️👏

[@WDRKlassik]

You're welcome!
We're happy that you like it 🥰

[@davebarclay4429]

Good to be reminded that Schoenberg could write proper music when he put his mind to it.

[@LucienMarine]

Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 5 is a symphonic poem by Arnold Schönberg, inspired by Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande. The work is in a single movement divided into four linked parts. His language is always tonal and post-romantic. The music attempts to reconcile, on the one hand an illustrative, even descriptive aspect, and on the other hand, a symphonic desire that translates its formal requirements, its architectural attention, while using easily identifiable brief melodic cells linked to the characters and the situations. The partition provides melodic sketches based on intense chromatism and flirts with an impressive ecstatic climate. Among the innovations, we will note scales by tones and chords by superposition of fourths, the outline of a first advance towards atonality. The rich polyphonic work and the summation of several subjects and motifs accentuate the complexity of the work and the demands necessary for its approach in the face of the disappearance of usual benchmarks. The complexity and disquietude of the abundant sound fabric contrasts with other musical readings of Maeterlinck's piece, hence the violent reactions from the public during the creation, then immediately from the critics. There is no doubt today that Schoenberg's Pelléas et Mélisande could benefit from a more positive reception despite his frank opposition to the canons of late romanticism which made him famous. *Lucien*

[@WDRKlassik]

Thank you for sharing 😊

[@LucienMarine]

@@WDRKlassik
« Music begins where the power of words ends » *Richard Wagner*

[@Dalgabambi]

Wunderbar....🎉🎉🎉

[@WDRKlassik]

Dankeschön! 😊

[@kirksmith1534]

Ok…